Carr and O'Rielly Defend Trump FCC Tweets
Republican FCC Commissioners Brendan Carr and Mike O’Rielly defended recent tweets from President Donald Trump critical of NBC, Comcast and NBC reporter Chuck Todd (see 2005110046), answering our questions during news conferences. “The president has every right to criticize any…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
news publication,” O’Rielly said. Some tweets tagged the FCC and Chairman Ajit Pai, and Trump previously urged the agency to take away NBC’s “license.” Carr has vocally condemned on First Amendment grounds calls by Free Press for the commission to act against false information broadcast about COVID-19. Carr drew a distinction between Free Press and the president’s tweets, noting FP filed a petition, explicitly seeking action against broadcasters. The president was expressing a view about Todd’s reporting, said Carr, saying he believes in the pushback between subjects and reporters. O’Rielly called the NBC report on Attorney General William Barr that was the focus of Trump's criticisms “crappy” and said the news outlet’s subsequent apology was “half-assed.” O'Rielly said protocol norms between the White House and the FCC stopped during the administration of then-President Barack Obama, who O'Rielly said pressured the agency to change its stance on net neutrality rules. Since that happened, such protocols have "gone out the window," he said. NBC News didn’t comment.